


How Can I Keep from Singing?

by wintercreek



Series: ATA Sorority [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Coming Out, F/F, Fraternities & Sororities, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-28
Updated: 2011-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-15 04:33:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercreek/pseuds/wintercreek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(An interlude in) The one where they're sorority girls. Music, traditions, connections, love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Can I Keep from Singing?

Joan did not expect the singing.

It wasn't something you saw in the movies and the Saturday Night Live sketches or something you heard in the campus rumors. Before ATA, she'd figured sorority life was skimpy clothes, beer pong with frat boys, and way too much time spent on hair and make-up. If there was any music, it was drinking songs, maybe, and rap for dirty dancing, but not this stuff. Her mother's reminiscences and her grandmother's stories were all about exquisite teas and balls, string quartets playing in the corner.

Not the old world, perfect harmonies in the midst of a ceremony, not ATA's motto sung together at every meeting, not the frantic composition of a new song every week before dinner with a fraternity. And surely not a pack of fraternity guys in their rumpled suits and crooked ties, arrayed in a semi-circle around the ATA porch, singing what once had been Disney's "A Whole New World" and was now "A Whole New Girl," SAT brothers grinning as Ronon goes down on his knees to belt out the chorus at Elizabeth's feet.

Joan loves it more than she'd ever thought she would. They answer the SAT guys with a carefully reworded version of a Jason Mraz song, one that Mer started last night and they all finished in the stairwell half an hour ago, calling out suggestions in between hair twists and while applying eyeshadow. Sometimes Joan pictures telling her friends from home about this, but she doubts they'd believe her.

That night, as they walk home from the SAT house replete with good food and cheap wine, Mer starts humming rhythmically and Joan finds herself joining in on the door chant. "A! T! ATA! 'atta girl, 'atta girl–" she says, gaining volume with each syllable. They shout and clap their way across campus, and even though it's silly with no audience of rushees looking on wide-eyed, it's exhilarating.

The strangest part, the best part, is one Joan truly never looked for. She's at home for an awkward winter break visit, doing dishes in the kitchen both to be a good daughter and to hide out, and she can't help singing under her breath. It's her favorite ATA song, the one they sing last of all on Pref Day after the testimonials have been given and the private conversations have ended. The song that gives the rushees time to think about whether they want to place ATA at the top of their preference lists, and gives the ATA members a chance to squeeze each other's hands and wipe away the inevitable mascara smears. Joan doesn't remember being moved by testimonials as a rushee, but now that she's in a sorority she gets choked up every time. Even Mer's speech, full of statistics, ends with a soft and wondering explanation that, statistically unlikely though it is, Mer's found the best friends of her life in ATA; no chart ever told her she could be loved like this.

Joan smiles now, into the soap suds, picturing Mer's earnest gaze and the way she'd locked eyes with Joan last September. Jennifer, the rushee Joan and Mer had been matched with, had looked from one to the other and her eyes had filled with a fierce wanting. She initiated eight weeks later, right on schedule, and it's Joan's silver circle badge that she's wearing until her own comes. Joan misses the slight weight over her heart, but it's an honor to have a little sister to carry hers.

She startles when another voice joins in on the song, louder than hers. Her mother, leaning on the doorframe, sings, "Across the stars, and through the night." Joan turns to face her as they continue, "My ATA, you still shine bright." They finish the song together and Joan realizes what being a legacy really means: her mother, Helen, and her grandmother, Esther, are also her sisters now.

Helen laughs. "I'll never forget the first time my mother surprised me like that with an ATA song," she says. "It's weird, isn't it?"

Joan nods as she rinses off her hands. "Yeah."

"It is for me too," Helen agrees. She continues, "I read in the alumni newsletter that you have a little sister now."

"Yeah, Meredith and I have her jointly, unofficially, but on paper she's my little. She's got my pin for now." Joan catches herself touching her shirt as though a ghost of her pin is there. "It's good, but strange. Like the singing, I guess."

Helen pulls something out of her pocket. "Then this is even stranger, probably, but I thought you might like to borrow my badge until you get yours back."

Joan takes the box and flips it open, smoothing one finger around the curve of her mother's badge. She removes it and looks at the initials on the back: HMC. It's hard to remember that her mother was a Cox, once, and not always a Sheppard. Helen's smile has gotten wider when Joan looks up.

"Yeah, the initials are odd too, aren't they? I borrowed your grandmother's pin for a while, and it took me an embarrassingly long ten minutes to figure out that she was EJH and not EJC because she'd been a Hunter before she was a Cox. And there you are: singing and surreality, a family tradition. Maybe you'll have a daughter to pass it on to, someday." Helen winks at Joan.

Joan suddenly wants her mother to know everything, to know about Mer and the plans they've been making, to know that if Joan has a daughter she'll have two ATA mothers to surprise her in the kitchen. She gathers up her confidence and asks, "Mom, would you like to take a walk with me?"

They bundle themselves into hats and gloves and start down the walk under a cold, clear sky. Just when Joan's starting to get nervous, her mother sings, "Mmm mm, build a bridge, mmm mm, 'cross the sea," and Joan joins in. By the time they finish the song, it's easy to say, "So, you know how I talk about Meredith all the time?" After all, you're safe with a sister who knows your songs.

Joan didn't expect that, either.


End file.
